Brewers: An ‘Eddie Rosario Playing First Base’ Project Could Be A Disaster

The Brewers appear to be getting ready to make a big move, and there are more rumors surrounding Eddie Rosario.

At first, the idea of the Brewers being interested in Eddie Rosario didn’t make much sense, given he’s been the starting left fielder for the Twins for the past few years and the Crew already has one of those in Christian Yelich. In fact, all three of their starting outfield spots are currently spoken for.

Some speculated that the plan would be to put Rosario at first base, and that would seem to be the case, per this report.

While that would be the only place he could possibly fit on this roster, there’s just one problem. Rosario has no experience at first base in his 11 years of professional baseball. He has never played the position in the majors or the minors.

So throwing him at first base with only a few weeks to prepare for it and playing the bulk of 162 games defensively at a position he hasn’t played before is…risky, to say the least.

The Brewers plan to sign Eddie Rosario to play first base could likely end up in a disaster.

The Brewers have prided themselves on their defense the last few years, especially their infield defense, led by Orlando Arcia. However, the best middle infielders and third baseman still have poor throws once in a while that are tough for a first baseman to catch. Good first basemen are almost always able to make the catch. For someone like Rosario, would he be able to?

This has the potential to be a disaster, if the signing happens. Rosario might feel comfortable trying it out now, but when he gets to spring training and has to work on it, if he doesn’t pick it up relatively quickly, the Brewers are stuck in a horrible position.

At that point, he’d already be signed so they’d have to play him, and there’s nowhere else to put him. His learning and focus on defense would have to continue into the regular season, where his poor defense can actually hurt the team in the standings. Plus, when a player has that heavy of a focus on learning a new position on the fly and struggling with it, it generally negatively impacts their offense as well.

So if Rosario can’t pick up first base quickly, it has the potential to both negatively impact his offense and his defense in the regular season, which doesn’t help the Brewers at all.

If they’re going to do this, Stearns and Counsell need to be extremely confident Rosario can handle the job defensively, otherwise his offense will take a downturn and they’ll be stuck with him and the offense will have yet another black hole in the lineup.

Sure, Rosario is a good left-handed bat when things are going well, and the Brewers could use that bat in the lineup, but if he has to focus everything on his defense, odds are, his offense will be negatively impacted. It happened to Avisail Garcia last year, and it could happen to Rosario this year.

Someone like C.J. Cron, who provides comparable offensive stats and has plenty of experience at the position, seems like a much better fit. He’s coming off an injury, so there’s that question mark, but his price will be lower and the defense won’t suffer.